


behind blue eyes

by christinefromsherwood



Series: 007 Fest 2019 [18]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Logan Lucky (2017)
Genre: Fluff, James Bond was actually undercover as Joe Bang during the heist, M/M, Multi, Open Relationships, Pining, Polyamory, Romance, Slow Dancing, all is explained in the fic, but Joe Bang is a real person, not real crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 18:51:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20013148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/christinefromsherwood/pseuds/christinefromsherwood
Summary: Clyde didn’t even notice when the door to his bar opened and a stranger walked in. He kept wiping at the tall glass and trying not to watch how the red fabric of Joe’s shirt stretched across his back and biceps whenever he moved his arms.Joe was in the process of talking to his sister and sure, he was a crook (like the rest of them) but he was a good man and Mely deserved to have someone good in her life. After her last partner left for a life in the more open-minded San Francisco, citing the accents, low wages and small-minded blue haired ladies as reasons, Mely got quieter and more closed off.Joe was a good man. Mely deserved a good man. Or just a bit of fun, if that was what she wanted.She worked too hard, and with the Logan curse and Jimmy giving it a mouth…





	behind blue eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [azure7539](https://archiveofourown.org/users/azure7539/gifts).



> for the **Collab Prompt Table** and **azure** , my favourite angst demon, who might have forgotten some of the conversation but mentioned she'd like to read a Joe Bang/Clyde Logan fic and have them dancing.
> 
> It only seemed natural to take it as a prompt, combine it with Craig!Bond and get some fest points out of it :D 
> 
> They said I was crazy (nobody said that), they said it couldn't be done (I have no idea what I'm going on about, honestly, no one has said that), but still I persevered and fused the two universes together! 
> 
> Behold! :D

Clyde didn’t even notice when the door to his bar opened and a stranger walked in. He kept polishing the tall glass and trying not to watch how the red fabric of Joe’s shirt stretched across his back and biceps whenever he moved his arms.

Joe was in the process of talking to his _sister_ and sure, he was a crook (like the rest of them) but he was a good man and Mely deserved to have someone good in her life. After her last partner left for a life in the more open-minded San Francisco, citing the local accents, low wages and small-minded blue haired ladies as reasons, Mely got quieter and more closed off.

Joe was a good man. Mely deserved a good man.

Or just a bit of fun, if that was what she wanted.

She worked too hard, and with the Logan curse and Jimmy giving it a mouth…

No, Clyde definitely wasn’t paying attention to the new customer. Although he should have, because it was noticing and serving customers that was his business, not spying on his sister’s dates, and also because if he had been paying attention, he might have noticed how the strangers eyes, which began to scan the room upon entrance, immediately zeroed in on the very same person he himself was painstakingly not staring at.

Clyde didn’t see the slender young man roll his eyes behind his glasses when he noticed Joe smile charmingly at his pretty sister; he didn’t notice Joe’s reaction—the slightest uptick in the corner of his mouth, a brightening in his expression—when he spotted the newcomer out of the corner of his eye; Clyde observed none of that because he was too busy not ogling the tattoos on Joe’s chest which kept peeking from out of his loosely buttoned shirt.

The first time Clyde registered that someone completely unfamiliar entered his bar was when looked back to see if the little star on Joe’s cheek was still doing the crinkly thing when he smiled, and saw only an empty stool, and Joe making his way slowly towards the jukebox in the corner.

A young man was leaning against the wall beside it, all slender and lean and enticing, peering at the songs on offer.

The jukebox was broken; Clyde could have told him that.

And he would have done, if the man had come up to the bar and asked! It was bad manners to come into a place and not come up to the bar straight away.

Clyde didn’t like people who had no manners. And he didn’t hold with blaming their mama for not teaching them better! Clyde himself only had Jimmy and Gramps for teachers, and he knew it was bad manners to not come greet the barman or order when he went into a bar!

In Clyde’s honest opinion, you had no business coming into any bar, if you were just going to be bending over a broken jukebox in tight jeans, pressing at useless buttons, and luring the barman’s sister’s potential ex-con boyfriend away from his date!

But maybe Joe was walking up to the man to ask him his business, and to tell him the jukebox wasn’t working.

But if that’s what he was doing, why was he standing so close to the man?

Joe didn’t need to bend over the jukebox as well, touching shoulders with the stranger, as if to make certain the jukebox really wasn’t working!

Joe already knew that.

He and his idiot brothers were the ones who broke it when they insisted Clyde teach them how to dance the Viennese waltz.

Clyde didn’t know how to dance the Viennese waltz; he’d never claimed to know how to do it, so he really had no idea where the Bang brothers got the idea from.

However, what Clyde did know how to do was read lips; a skill which had proved useful both in the army and for Jimmy’s crazy cauliflower ideas.

It was a pity they stood with their backs to him; this way he could only catch bits and pieces of what they were saying when they turned to look at each other.

“…like my tattoos, Q?” Joe was saying, lips quirking in a smile. And it was his real one too! The one he’d give Clyde when they shared shifts in prison and Clyde would come up with a really good joke about one of the guards or the warden. Clyde didn’t understand this at all.

He looked to see what Mely thought of the situation, but his sister wasn’t in her usual place at the bar either. Instead, she was mixing Manhattans for herself and the lady FBI agent.

Another customer that Clyde had missed, then!

Clyde turned his attention back to the pair at the jukebox.

“…over… still doing here, James?” was what he thought the stranger was saying.

Clyde must have read that one wrong. Joe Bang went by many aliases in his time, but as far as Clyde knew, none of them was James.

What Clyde however could not mistake for anything else was Joe inclining his head towards the bar and himself. He knew for certain he was right when the stranger turned to look at him over his shoulders.

Clyde felt the man’s eyes slide over him from the belt buckle on his jeans to his hair to his new prosthetic. There they stopped and rested for a long while, before the man turned again and went back to pressing the buttons on the broken jukebox.

And Clyde would be damned before he allowed some sister-boyfriend poaching bastard to come into his bar, not order and then stare at his new hand!

He grabbed a bar towel to have something to clench his hands around and stalked out towards the couple from behind the bar.

He saw Joe and the stranger bend their heads close together in a hushed, rapid discussion he didn’t even try to read.

They stopped and pulled away slightly when he halted in front of them, trying not to fume.

“Leave off,” Clyde said and jerked his chin to the machine behind them when they turned to look at him; surprise on their faces. There was something different about Joe, too, that Clyde couldn’t put his finger on. He decided he didn’t care and added: “The jukebox ain't working and it won’t play no nothin’ no matter how much you bang on it.”

The stranger looked him straight in the eyes, a strange smile playing on his lips. Clyde tried to persuade himself that he didn’t like how the green and gold glittered in his eyes.

“Won't it really?” he said with laughter in his voice and a smug smile curving the cupid’s bow of his lips attractively. Clyde definitely didn’t like how the man pronounced his vowels all crisp and English.

Then the man nudged one of the buttons on the old Wurlitzer—in the section you needed to smack three times and plead with even back in the day when it worked—and _The Who_ began to play.

Clyde looked from one man to the other, and tried not to grit his teeth at the fond, proud smile on Joe’s face.

“Such a show-off, darling,” he said, and Clyde had to take a step backward when he heard him.

What was the voice? Where did it come from?!

The stranger was rolling his eyes and shaking his head, and Clyde almost missed him saying:

“While I would love to stay and watch as you try to explain this, James, I’ll be up at the bar, waiting for you both.” The man paused, and then continued: “You know what, I feel like having a screw-driver. Could your sister make one for me, Clyde?”

Clyde tore his eyes away from Joe’s face which suddenly seemed so different and unfamiliar, and blinked at the man.

“Sure Mely can do you a screw-driver,” he found himself answering haltingly. The stranger nodded.

And suddenly he was standing right in front of Clyde with his hand outstretched and a warm smile on his lips.

“I’m Q,” he said as he pressed Clyde’s palm with long delicate fingers. “It’s very nice to meet you, Clyde.”

And then he took a step back and towards Joe, who he then kissed softly, stroking those same delicate fingers behind his ears just like Clyde had always wanted to do.

“Take your time, love,” Q said and walked off to the bar and Clyde didn’t understand at all.

And then a new song in the album came on the miraculously repaired and rigged jukebox. Pete Townshend began to croon _No one knows what it’s like to be the bad man_ from the speakers and Joe was stepping towards him—the same old Joe, the same old smile again—and saying: “May I have this dance, Clyde?”; all proper Southern-gentleman.

And well, Clyde wasn’t sure he understood what was going on, but dancing with Joe Bang was something he had wanted to do ever since Joe came by their house to borrow some tools from Gramps on his prom night (Clyde still remembered how deep he’d blushed when Joe looked him up and down in his rented tuxedo and winked), so he took hold of Joe’s offered hand and let the man draw him into an embrace for a slow dance.

He’d fumbled with his new prosthetic for a moment, but Joe took a step closer, took a hold of it and so they danced.

Clyde fought not to close his eyes at the smell of Joe’s cologne, at how the taut fabric of the red shirt felt beneath his fingertips. Because the rapid progression of the evening’s events was giving him a whiplash, and he knew he shouldn’t let himself relax.

He had started his shift at the bar quite prepared to not watch Joe and Mely enjoy their date, while making drinks for Jimmy and _his_ new girlfriend, and then that stranger walked in the door and everything changed.

Tensing, Clyde shot a look to the bar. Q sat there on a stool; sipping at his drink and watching Mely flirt with the FBI agent with a slight smirk on his face.

“Not leaving much room for Jesus, are we?” The man Clyde was dancing with spoke up. And as soon as he opened his mouth, Clyde knew that he hadn’t misheard him before and that he couldn’t call him Joe Bang.

This wasn’t Joe Bang, even if he looked like him and could speak and smile like him.

Clyde made to pull away slightly, but the man would only release him part of the way.

Clyde wondered what he had got himself into.

“Who are you, and what did you do with Joe?” he asked, adrenaline rushing through his veins in a very different way than he had imagined would if Joe had ever stood so close to him.

Still they danced.

“Joe’s fine, Clyde. He’s been having the time of his life travelling the world on CIA’s dime,” the man immediately reassured him.

Clyde was silent. It was possible that his dance partner was lying, but something behind those blue eyes (as Townshend sang appropriately) was telling him that this was the absolute truth.

“You’re not CIA, though,” he spoke finally. Clyde had spent weeks in prison with this man, he would know if he was lying.

“I’m not,” the man agreed, smiling at him with Joe’s crooked smile. “The name’s Bond, James Bond."

Clyde blinked at him slowly, James Bond continued: 

"In the spirit of international cooperation, our agency lent Q and I to your Central Intelligence. Warden Burns needed closer watching and I look enough like Cousin Joe to make me an ideal candida-.”

“Cousin?” Clyde interrupted. He was sure he knew the entirety of Joe’s family.

“A very, very distant cousin,” James Bond assured him with a smile. “We share a great great great grandparent, I believe.”

If Clyde wasn't one of the people who took part in the convoluted NASCAR heist, he wouldn’t have believed him. But he was and he did.

“Why are you telling me this?” seemed like the next pertinent question.

James stopped the dance and gave him a slow, filthy smirk that made Clyde’s toes curl with the promise it carried.

“Because, Clyde, Q and I prefer absolute honesty with the people we invite into our bed.”

Clyde swallowed drily. From his seat at the bar, Q smiled at him, all long limbs and messy hair and soft red lips.

The slow song was ending and Clyde was still wondering what he’d gotten himself into. He really wanted to find out.

* * *

Two weeks later, the real Joe Bang came by Duck Tape; a big, gift wrapped box in hand.

Clyde brought him his favourite beer and explained about the heist, and the money.

“Cousin Jimbo’s a real pal,” Joe grinned at him, all wide and excited and charming, when he heard about the black plastic bags James stowed for him under the swing.

Clyde fought to hide his blush.

“That reminds me, Clyde Logan-“ Clyde refused to shiver at the way the playful rhythm of his own name sounded in Joe’s mouth. “-Jimbo and his boy gave me a little something to give to you.”

Holding his eyes, Joe put the package on the bar and slid it over to him.

“Yeah?” Clyde’s voice did not break mid-word when their fingers brushed.

“Yeah,” Joe breathed, and then still holding his gaze, he leaned across the bar and pressed his lips to the corner of Clyde’s mouth.

“Was that from your cousin, too?” Clyde could hear himself asking on a startled exhale.

“You Logans must be as simple-minded as people say!” Joe huffed out a soft laugh before burying his hand in Clyde’s hair and kissing him again, hard.

(The present from James and Q lay forgotten on the bar until the next morning. But during breakfast Joe and Clyde had a lot of fun trying out all the different, unusual functions of the Clyde's new Q-branch-designed prosthetic.)


End file.
